STRAWBERRY. 327 



This most agreeable fruit does not appear to have been 

 cultivated by the ancients ; and it seems only to have 

 grown in the mountainous parts of Greece and Italy, the 

 climate being too warm in the other parts of these coun- 

 tries. It is slightly mentioned by Virgil, Ovid, and 

 Pliny, and even the latter author does not speak of the 

 fruit as a diet or medicine. In speaking of the arbutus 

 tree, book 15, chap. 24, he says, " the tree is termed the 

 strawberry-tree ; and there is not any other tree that gives 

 fruit which resembles the fruit of an herb growing on the 

 ground." Again he says, speaking of the bramble-berry, 

 " as the ground-strawberry differs in carnosity from 

 the fruit of the arbutus- tree." 



The red-wood strawberry is a native of this country ; 

 and several modern writers state, that the white straw- 

 berry, as well as the green strawberry, are indigenous to 

 these kingdoms. The latter is often called the pine-apple 

 strawberry, from its excellent flavour. 



That our native strawberries have long been cultivated 

 in the gardens of this country, we find from Tusser's ad- 

 vice to the Farmer, who, in the work he points out to be 

 done in the month of September, says, 



" Wife, into the garden, and set me a plot 



With strawberry-roots, of the best to be got : 

 Such growing abroad, among thorns in the wood, 

 Well chosen and pricked, prove excellent good." 



Gerard seems to consider only the red strawberry as a 

 native of this climate. He says, " strawberries do grow 

 upon hills and valleys, likewise in woods, and other such 

 places that bee something shadowie. They prosper well 

 in gardens: the red strawberry euery where; and the 

 other two, white and green, more rare, and are not to be 

 founde saue onely in gardens." 



